Prices Paid
by optimouse
Summary: Jonah Prowse had stayed in Jericho too long to truly accept exile from the town, and his home was there. Artia Price was no longer the young girl who had married a man from Jericho in New Bern, 20 yrs had passed and Jericho was now home. How to adjust?
1. Chapter 1

"Where would he have gone?" Hawkins asked Jake. "A man like Jonah Prowse would have a hidey-hole."

Eric remembered stories about Jonah, couples with 'accidents' and free mechanical work. He recalled the legal layout of Jericho, and of residents both familiar and friendly with outlaws.

"If he's not leaving the area, "Jake explained, "He went to Vietnam with Obadiah Price."

"Obadiah Price?" Hawkins echoed. "Haven't met him." He'd noted a 'Price' road just outside of town, but Obadiah Price hadn't been under suspicion, or curious.

"Obadiah came back from the war a changed man," Jake spoke the words that Jonah had once spoken: "his girl was married to someone else. Just before Jonah got divorced, he got married to a girl from New Bern, Artia Russell. Jonah helped Mrs. Price out a lot when Obadiah got a job out west for awhile, and the later, when I was in high school, found out that Obadiah was abusive. He tried to get Artie a divorce, but Miss Artie was in the hospital soon after, and then Obadiah's brakes let out."

He said the last with a vindictive grin, and Hawkins realized that the accident was no accident.

"He and the Missus remain close?"

"Miss Artie and Jonah," Johnston stated from the doorway, "we always thought they'd marry." He sniffed. "Hell, a lot of people thought they were having an affair before Obadiah died."

"You disagree?" Jake had watched Jonah around Artie, seen him acquiesce to things he would not have for any other.

"Nah, Miss Artie has a streak of stubborn pride a mile wide—you'll note that she hasn't been to town once, even for rations, since the bombs." Johnston like Artie Price, no-nonsense woman who kept to herself. "And we won't see her again until spring, she's holed up in that solar powered farmstead of hers."

"Why haven't we talked to her?" Hawkins asked. "Sounds like a woman who'd want to help."

"Bonnie and Stanley and Mimi have. Her farm is self sufficient. What she can't use goes to the town with the Richmond Farm's. She won't deal with us directly." Johnston explained. "because she has animals we might slaughter, but she needs for wool."

"She's the town's only yarn maker." Jake told Hawkins. "Keeps sheep and rabbits for that, cows for milk, and horses for any visiting."


	2. Chapter 2

"Jonah." Jonah smiled at the woman who'd been a constant of the last few years. Artie was no longer the brightly colored bird that she'd been when she'd married Obadiah Price, but she was still pretty in that non-conventional way that had cemented Obadiah's decision to marry John Russell's sister. Blue eyes with that same piercing gaze that Russell had, and hair that looked like spun rose gold, rounding body, now. Crows' feet by her eyes, laugh lines around her mouth. The hair that he had played with was pinned up against her scalp for safety. "Come in."

He'd always been welcome in her home, his friendship having transferred from her dead husband to her, and his affections as well. His boots looked hard against the floor, even though it was hard wood and hadn't been smoothed since he had done it about three years before. An area rug had her work boots stacked next to her winter boots and her winter slippers. Behind it was the coat rack that he'd made for her with extra parts. Three jackets hung there, a wind breaker, a warmer fall jacket and the bulk of a full winter coat hung there, and for a moment he wondered where she'd stashed the ankle length wool coat that had been his Christmas gift to her. Hers' to him had been 10 pairs of hand-knit socks, a hat, and mittens, all with the lining of wool from the sheep that she carefully maintained for their wool.

"Hey Artie. Can I stay here for awhile?" He asked, toeing off his boots. "the Mayor has decided that I am to be shunned."

Artia Price had married Obadiah Price at age seventeen, her father having met Obadiah and thought that he was an appropriate bride for his only daughter, whose talk of nursing school and a job had started to frighten him. The wedding had been swift, and her knowledge of her groom sketchy. It was once she had moved to the Price farmstead that Artie was introduced to Obadiah's best friend and former Army buddy Jonah Prowse.

Jonah had made a terrified young bride comfortable, and when Obadiah had taken a job out west, had been more help to herr than her so-called friends. The friends that had gone to college, that had gone to nursing school. She lived and worked on a farmstead that wasn't in the city that she had played soccer against in high school, but was damn close, and she had no friends there. No one really liked the Prices, so no one every stopped by to say hello.

It was Jonah who taught her how to drive the F-250 dually that was the farm's only form of transportation, and it was Jonah who first brought her into Jericho. Her pregnancy had been a surprise to her, though in retrospect, she had never used any form of birth control with her husband. Telling Obadiah had made him the happiest with her that he had been, even during the wedding. Jonah had taken her to a biker bar on the outskirts of Jericho to celebrate, teaching her to shoot pool.

Jonah, not Obadiah had held her hand when she almost lost the baby during the fifth month. Jonah, not Obadiah who had taken her to the hospital during the ninth month when the baby came. Jonah, who held her when the baby, a tiny little boy that she named Russell, died in his crib at the hospital. It was Jonah who had picked Obadiah up from the airport while she still rested in bed, following the birth.

"You have always been welcome in my home." Artie replied, her hand going to her abdomen. "Now close the door and put up your coat, soup's on the stove, and I have a whole list of chores to prepare for the winter."

Jonah sighed. He had a feeling that this was going to be an interesting winter.


	3. Chapter 3

"Jonah," Jonah looked up from his bowl of stew and across the table at Artie. "would you care to explain to me exactly why you've cleared out space in the upper floor of the barn?" She asked. Her ears were perked for an explanation.

"I'm thinking about putting together a crew." Jonah explained. "Organized, swift, efficient. Raiding on the highways, I thought. But I thought that I'd need a good plan first."

"A base of operations where no one would think to look for it." Artie finished. "In a wool-farmer's barn."

"Yes." Blue eyes took on a tone of anger. "You want to bring thieves to my land." She stated. "My home. And you started this without consulting me?"

"Artie, in case you forgot, I'm a thief." Jonah snarked back.

"One thief that I sleep with. Multiple thieves whose balls I don't have access to on my property?" Artia shook her head. He didn't get it. "I lose that sense of safety that I worked so hard to make after Obadiah died." Their eyes met, Jonah nodded.

"How about you come with me when I try and drum up a crew?" Jonah asked. "We'll go down to Black Jack, you can sell some of the yarn, trade some of that venison I know you've got stored away."

"Anyone that you bring back to my farm gets vetted by me first." Artie compromised.

"Vetted and threatened." Jonah realized. "You still practice with that bow?"

"You can recover arrows. You can't recover bullets." Artie retorted. "And with the rifle. And with that hand gun you got me. I'm rusty with a sword, but I still own three."

"I'd forgotten about that," and he had known. Artia Russell's father may have been a chauvinistic, misogynistic bastard who'd sold his daughter to a man nearly ten years her senior, but he'd taught both of his children weaponry, even old weaponry. Now, having experienced the world, he understood that humans weren't the only sentients that walked the earth. Then, before Vietnam, he hadn't understood.

"I haven't."

"My name is Artia Price. Jonah runs the crew, but remember, you are here on my sufferance." Artie started. "That means that while Jonah and I agree that I feed you, it means that you also help around the farmstead."

Five men sat in front of her, eyes sharp. She'd kicked Jonah out for this, deciding to explain the world to them herself.

"You will be moving into my second floor, and thus I have some rules." She ran the hunting knife against the whetstone. "No smoking in the house. Boots come off in the entrance way. Pick up after yourself. Don't bring anyone onto the farmstead that Jonah hasn't vetted and hasn't told me about. Don't eat out of the pantry, that food now needs to last seven people until spring, it was originally packed for one woman."

"Why're you in charge?" One man raised a hand, and Artie grinned, her wrist ratcheting as she threw the hunting knife. Two inches from the seat of his pants, the steel vibrated, imbedded in the wood. "Good throw."

"I'm in charge because the house is mine, earned with my body, my pain." Artie paused. "And the first person to think about killing any of the livestock need to remember that they could always be eaten for dinner."

"She's a bitch." Kronos smirked at Ron's words, having watched the woman who'd come with the leader of their new crew to Black Jack. "Cold hearted bitch." Kronos reached down and readjusted himself, thankful that his dick was still attached. He wasn't sure if Immortality would let him regenerate _that_ precious bit of equipment.

"Not really a bitch." Kronos stated, glancing at Ron. Thickening beard and shaggy hair, a square build with blunt fingers. He'd been a bouncer before the bombs. Now he did the same type of protection jobs on a much smaller scale. "She knows what she will and won't tolerate, and is willing to enforce it." He liked that kind of woman, strong, backbone. Plus a woman who could throw a knife like that, with that precision. That spoke of knowledge.


	4. Chapter 4

"Cory," Kronos had stayed behind at the Price Farmstead on guard duty while Jonah and the enlarged crew went on a raiding trip. Artie and Jonah had had a screaming match when Jonah had decided to leave a guard on the house when the crew wasn't there. His argument was that the crew had made enemies, what if they found out the crew's base. Her argument was that the farmstead was her home, her place to defend and hold against enemies. Artie thought that accepting a guard was to lessen her independence. Jonah had won the argument when an intruder had been found on the property, an intruder that wasn't from Jericho. The man had quietly disappeared, to Kronos' knowledge, though the bloodstains in the gas-tank's little shack had to be washed up. "Could you saddle up Apostle for me?"

Artie descended the stairs, having gone up to the bunk-rooms to gather the bedding to start the wash.

"You going to start the sheets boiling?" The big cauldron had been on a spit over a bonfire pit for the day, a fire underneath warming the water that was mixed with a soap creation.

"Yeah, then I need to head into Jericho." Artie watched Cory Tremaine's eyes widen across the room. He'd been here for nearly the entire winter, and she'd never gone into the town. Not once. "Medical Center." She stated. "I've used the hand radio to call in to ask for an appointment. I need them to confirm an opinion." Her breasts were sore, she'd been irritable, missed periods, and was frequently tired. She was in her early forties, her sex partner had a vasectomy, she was starting menopause.

"You okay?" Cory asked. He'd grown fond of the ruthless woman, her harsh decision making earning her a place in his affections, as she balanced it with compassion and kindness.

"I'm menopausal." She'd lost weight over the winter, hell, since the bombs fell, but she was still more padded than her husband would have allowed. Jonah had told Cory that he suspected that Artie had the last surviving chocolate stash in the state. He didn't tell Cory that she had cacao seeds, and sugar beet seeds. Those would have been tempting fate, worth tremendous amounts on the black market. "I'd like a self diagnosis confirmed."

Menopause hadn't been an issue when Kronos/Cory was young, with women rarely making it out of their thirties. That the human body eventually wore out was a surprise to him, wore out from use, not from stress. Having watched the emergence of menopause and other age related issues, Cory had realized how devastating they could be to the person they afflicted.

"I'll just go and saddle Apostle for you." Cory hurried out the door, discomfited.

"Dr. Kenchy Dhuwalia," The man outstretched a hand. "a pleasure to meet you. I must admit that I was quite surprised to find that I had been asked for a scheduled appointment. You are?"

"Artia Price, nee Russell. Most everyone calls me Artie though." The woman smiled at the doctor. "I don't come to town much, so I thought that it would be best if I called ahead." Artie paused, considering. "Actually, the last time I was in this medical center, the sheriff brought me the news that my husband's brakes had failed, so must have been fifteen years back."

"You're that Artie Price?" The nurses had told him about the most memorable cases that they could remember crossing the doors of the medical center.

Artie Price had been brought in to the center with multiple stab wounds to the torso, internal wounds consisting of a notched stomach, perforated liver as the most serious, a sliced femoral artery, and the type of damage that you got from long term abuse. The final straw had been that the abuse that her body had taken had caused a first trimester miscarriage.

"I'm that memorable?" Artie stated. "I'm actually here about menopause."

"You're how old?" Kenchy asked. "And when was the last time you menstruated?"

"Two months back, and I'm early forties, now." Artie explained. "I can't be pregnant, my lover had a vasectomy after his son was born." She explained.

"Would you mind if I ran an ultrasound anyway?" Kency asked. Early forties was still a bit early for menopause, and the woman had a glow.

"If you must."

"And while there are no prenatal vitamins left, I can give you a list of foods that contain high amounts of the vitamins that you'll need to help with the pregnancy. Also a list of foods to avoid." Kenchy watched the woman, whose hand had moved to her abdomen, holding it protectively. "Miss, are you okay?"

"After Obadiah killed her, I never thought I'd conceive again." Artie whispered. "The doctor said that he thought I wouldn't be able to conceive without in vitro."

"Doctors can be wrong," Kenchy stated. "and it was twenty years ago. Things change in twenty years."

"You're right." Artie stated. "Things change."

A baby meant so many things, especially with the future unknown.


	5. Chapter 5

"Artie!" Jonah shouted. "Where the hell you been?"

"I had to go into Jericho, Jonah." The shouting stopped as Jonah moved forward to hold Apostle's reins as Artia swung down from the horse. His hands steadied her as she dropped to the ground.

"Why?" He asked. Artie had never really been one to enjoy the town, and while he understood that she was a loner in ways that he'd never be, he'd thought that some socializing with a more diverse set of people than he and his crew would help her.

"I had to go to the medical center." Artie explained. "Why're you home early?" She asked.

"The crew intercepted a truck bound for Jericho from New Bern." Artie's eyes widened. From Bonnie and Mimi she'd heard that relations with New Bern were full of tensions, and Jonah had related some rumors that he and the crew had heard while out and about. "Mortar rounds, and I don't think they're selling them to Jericho."

"You think that they mean to use them." Artie realized. "Shit. And I'm right in the way of any offensive."

"You have choices." Jonah stated, and Artie realized that there weren't that many of the team around the farmstead. Jonah noticed her dawning intutition and explained. "They're on watch duty around the farmstead. We could move the livestock into Jericho." Artie shook her head.

"I do that, I lose independence. I know you have a second place, a safer place. The dually is fully fueled, we could attach the trailer, load the animals inside, and you could move them to your alpha site. I keep Apostle and Hobbes with me, and I defend this place."

"It's an eight acre farm and they had mortars, Artie." Jonah restated. "You won't be able to defend it."

"Do I at least have the night?" Artie asked, and Jonah nodded. "Spend it here with me?"

Jonah nodded at the quiet desperation in her voice.

"I'll be gone in the morning." He stated. "But I'll stay the night."

Artie rolled out of bed, tiptoeing out of the living room and into the kitchen where the cooking fire was still burning. She'd grown into the habit of leaving that particular fire always burning, something always simmering above it over the last few months. The solar panels in the roof allowed her to have electrical power, but after the amount of time she'd spent fixing them after the EMP she never relied on them anymore.

Taking a sheet of paper out of the drawer in the mobile workspace, she grabbed a pen and went to sit at the table.

"Artie?" Cory asked from the doorway. "You still up?" His eyes were on the woman wrapped in a thick terrycloth bathrobe sitting next to the kitchen fire, and he wondered for a moment what she was wearing underneath it, then shook his head, realizing that Jonah would kill him for those thoughts. Not that it would stick, but picturing a woman in the nude wasn't worth waking up again.

"Yeah. You heading off shift?" She asked.

"Jonah asked me to stay with you." He told her. "I'm off shift, heading to bed. You?"

"Jonah's asleep, but I couldn't sleep. I thought I'd sit in here for a bit."

"You're writing something." Kronos/Cory stepped into the room, slumping across the table.

"Just a note." Artie stated. "To Jonah. I thought that he might need something to remind him that he's loved while he's elsewhere, maybe once I'm gone."

"Now that's morbid." Cory nodded, going out into the hallway, across and into the dining room, then upstairs to the bunk rooms.

Artie finished the letter, folded it. Got up from the kitchen table, pushed in the chair, went to the coats on the coatrack, placed in an internal pocket. He'd find it in a few days, he had no real reason to be in that pocket. She hoped that he waited.


	6. Chapter 6

"Both Apostle and Aulfrey are saddled," Cory came into the house. "are you packed?" He asked. "I heard mortars this morning."

"So did I." Artie stated. "I've left the pantry open, so when they take the house, they won't kill the door. I've removed and cached the solar panels." She paused, considering how to do this, but then decided that the easy way was best.

She opened the oilcloth package on the workspace.

"Pretty." Kronos peered at the three swords, one a broadsword that he could weild, but he doubted she could, a short sword, the grip rewrapped for a small hand, and a gladius. "What did your family do that you needed those?"

"My grandmother married a man named Adam Russell against the wishes of the group she worked for, called the Watchers."

"He was an Immortal," Kronos realized. "named Methos. The broadsword was his?" Artie nodded.

"Grandmother Russell adopted two children, and they taught them well. Father went away to college and came back with nasty ideas, but he was a Watcher, he taught both John and I how to use the swords that were our birthright." Artie stated. "I haven't kept up as much as I should have, Obadiah had very certain views of things a woman should and shouldn't do, even further than Father's. After I got out of the hospital, I couldn't physically lift a sword, and by the time I could, I only rarely had the time to practice." She explained. "The broadsword is for you, Kronos."

"Kronos?" He asked, suspicious, then he saw her smile softly. "You knew?"

"About four years ago Adam stopped by for a week. He said that he'd recently had a run in with some old friends, and while the majority of his wives' families had died out or bred out, there was me and John, over in New Bern. we were, he thought, potentially in danger. He warned me, gave me a sketch. When Jonah introduced you at Black Jack, I knew you. You haven't done me any harm, and who knows who might be with New Bern. I know you have your own sword, but think of this as a gift. As back up. As the hope that family will survive this coming battle."

"Family?"

"You are Grandfather's brother." Artie smiled. "That makes you my Great Uncle." He started.

"Impudent youth!" He grinned at her. Now he got why she seemed familiar, had that hint of Methos around her, hint of Watcher. "You ready to go?" Artie nodded.

"I heard that you needed all hands on deck?" Jake Green looked at Artie Price, whose hands held the bow that he'd once seen her use to take down a deer at 500 yards. She sat the buckskin like she'd been born to the saddle, which considering that she'd competed in barrel racing before she got married, she had.

"Who's that behind you?" Jake asked, and Artie waved the man forward. Jake saw the scar through the man's eyes, the familiarity on the chestnut that was Artie's other horse, she was sitting on Apostle, the blood chestnut was Aulfrey. He also held a weapon, a rifle that had been sawed down for better spray.

"Jake Green, meet Cory Bell. Jake, Cory's a friend of mine, and when I left the farmstead, he said he'd come with me."

"You up for a good bit of fighting?" Cory's face lit with happiness. He looked like a brawler, a man who loved a good spot of violence.


	7. Chapter 7

"Sir," one of the soldiers came up to Beck. "we've found two people on horseback, brought them in. One of them had Constantino's head in her scope from a thousand yards and on horseback. Only reason she didn't take the shot is because we threatened her companion." Jake's head shot up and Constantino's went down.

"Oh, don't be a fool," Jake spat at the man. "if Artia Price wanted you dead, you'd be dead now. Most vicious woman I've ever had the pleasure of meeting."

"Artia?" Constantino's eyes opened. "Artia Russell." He remembered her. Remembered wanting to marry her, remembered talking her into his car with pretty words than fucking her. "Great piece of ass." He stated, and Jake lunged across the table, only the soldiers grabbing him keeping him from strangling Constantino.

"Say that about Miss Artie again," Jake stated. "and I will be the least of your worries."

"Bring them in." Beck ordered.

Artia Price had lost weight since the bombs fell. Jake hadn't noticed that when she'd volunteered here, hours before. A split black trench fell to the floor, and fell oddly in some areas, leading Jake to wonder what was in it. Her boots were the boots he remembered from helping resurface her floors, so many years ago.

"Miss Artie," Jake nodded. "Cory."

"Commander Green." Her eyes were the ice blue that echoed her brother's, and Jake realized that her hand rested on a knife hilt somewhere. "I am quite happy to see that you escaped the violence unharmed."

"What Artia, no kisses for an old lover?" Kronos' eyebrow shot up, and Jake growled low in his throat.

"Was that supposed to be enticing, Phil?" Artie stated. "I was jailbait and you were a sheriff's deputy. Years later I realize that you weren't that good in bed, either." She sniffed. Her eyes swept around the room, zeroing in on Beck. She walked forward, the duster swaying, disturbing the air. "I won't offer you my hand to shake. Introduce yourself, then I will introduce myself."

"Major Edward Beck, Allied States of America Army, 10th Mountain Division." He paused, eyes scraping over the middle aged woman, taking in the well-used boots, jeans, and trench coat, what looked to be a homemade sweater. "You?"

"Artia Price, 4 time all state marksman in rifles, handguns, and bow." Her eyes were dark. "I own the wool farm." She stated. Gestured to the man behind her. "Cory."

"That would have been a very pretty shot," Beck began. "why not take it?" Jake raised an eyebrow as well. Cory had been wondering the same question.

"It would have been rude to shoot a bullet through Stanley's window," She stated. "I'd hate for him to have to feel as violated as I did this morning when a mortar fell through my roof!" Her eyes were firing. "I would have taken that shot if I hadn't already evacuated the animals, Phil, remember that. Your little mortar, want to know where it landed?" Kronos hid his snickers at her glare, _gahds_, she reminded him of Methos with her head cocked and her eyes flinty.

"In your bed?" Phil Constantino shrunk into his chair.

"In the bunny hutch, which is where I was planning on putting a baby cradle, Phil." Her eyes were shadowy. "If I ever see you again, I'll take your head." She whispered, turning and going towards the door. Major Beck waved the soldiers to let her go through.

"She always like that?" He asked the two men at the table, and the man who'd come in with her.

"Miss Artie?" Jake finally answered. "She got married at 17, widowed years later, the same night he put her in the hospital, had a child stillborn, and owns the Price Farmstead free and clear." His eyes were sharp. "She ran the daycare center that Stanley and I went to, and when Stanley inherited Bonnie, he sent her there as well. She defends well, will always carry through on a threat, and that 4 year championship boast she made?" He paused, remembering. "If there'd been nationals in high school, she would have won them. She made some of the snipers that I saw in Iraq seem sloppy."

"Taught you how to shoot," Beck realized. "and holds a grudge."

"One of the best women I know." Jake stated. "Independent, bitchy, and one of the best daycare professionals in town." He paused. "And well protected." Cory nodded.

"Mr. Prowse said that he'd drop her cattle, sheep, and bunnies off after the fighting cooled down." Cory explained. "I'll be here for the foreseeable future, she's kin."

"Is she single?" Edward asked, randomly curious. Two sets of eyes met.

"Define single." Jake stated.

"Single, as in dating someone?" Edward clarified. "Married. Engaged."

"Miss Artie is sleeping with Jonah Prowse," Cory explained. "but I think that they sleep together as old friends, comfortable lovers, not beloveds. He loved his wife, for all she divorced him, and she, well, I don't think that she's ever been in love." Jake nodded.


End file.
